Ghosts
by nyxwolff
Summary: Draco and Hermione have a secret - a secret that no one can know about. / Dramoine drabble.


A/N: I own nothing. All characters belong to Jo Rowling.

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><p><strong>Ghosts<strong>

Hermione bound down the empty corridor, her arms stiffly at her side, her head held high and her hopes held up higher. Her heart beat furiously, her ribcage rattling with an erratic rhythm. The idea of being spotted by someone made sweat bead on her forehead and coat her palms. She took a sharp right and spotted him, leaning against a pillar in a dark corner.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The sole of her shoes made a gentle pounding on the stone floor loud enough for him to raise his head and turn his face towards her.

A face she was expected to hate but couldn't help but adore. His pale complexion, his white blond hair that hung just above his stormy grey eyes – to her, he looked like a ghost who's story was long forgotten.

Hermione approached him, engulfing herself in the darkness across him. Her eyes looked anywhere but at him, concentrating on a speck of dirt on the floor underneath her feet. The gentle sound of his breathing was the only noise that could be heard.

"Hermione," he whispered, and it sent a shiver down her spine. She loved the way he said her name and gushed when he addressed her by her first name and not her last. She darted her eyes up to his face, wanting to go for a quick glance of recognition, but she ended up meeting his eyes and staying there.

"I can't do this anymore," she confessed, her voice cracking under the strain of staying silent.

"I know you can't," he said. "But you have to keep doing it. If you want this to work, you have to keep doing it." Tears began to well in Hermione's eyes, her mouth quivering underneath the pressure to frown.

"I can't, Draco, I just can't," she whimpered. "It's not fair to him, and it's certainly not fair to me." Draco sucked in a thick stream of breath, biting the inside of his lower lip.

"If you could just hold out for the rest of term, I promise you, you can end it," he bargained, his chest tightening at Hermione's weakened state. Her brown eyes lifted themselves to his, now completely brimming with tears that began to race down her cheeks. Draco's breath caught in his throat.

"Draco," she whispered. "Draco, I don't – I don't want to pretend anymore. I don't want to pretend to love Ron like this. It hurts seeing how happy he is and knowing that I'm lying to him. I hate this, I hate it so much."

Watching Hermione walk down the corridors with Ron, her hand slipped into his, was nothing but torture for the young Malfoy. The way his arms would wrap around her waist when he held her close, the obnoxious grin on his face when he looked down at her – it was sickening. He looked at her like a schoolboy with his first broomstick.

He didn't treasure her the way he did. Didn't look at her as if she were the only person on earth, as if his very life depended on her existence –

As if she were the love of his life.

Hermione's tears began to fall heavily, and she buried her face in the palms of her hands. Draco tugged Hermione to him, wrapping her in the arms that should always be embracing her, and letting her sob into his chest.

"P-P-Please, Draco," she stuttered. "I c-can't live a lie anymore." Sympathy was then replaced with anger, and Draco pushed her away from him and gripped her shoulders. Hermione's eyes widened, red and puffy from all her crying.

"You can't live a lie like this?" he sneered. "Hermione, I am a walking lie! You don't know how this feels – to watch you be paraded around by that redheaded prat and not being able to do anything about it. " Hermione hiccupped, her head tilted in shame as if she were a little girl being scolded.

The couple grew silent; Hermione's sobbing slowing down to a gentle whimper, and Draco's grip on her shoulders grew slack. They were once again at a distance, never daring to get too close for fear of a lost first year or a pair of mischievous students catching them. Their short, yet close, contact was already longer than it ever should have been in public quarters.

"So what do we do now?" Hermione whispered, her eyes resting once again to the familiar speck of dirt. Draco stood still and silent. Out of his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of Hermione's gentle face cast a paler shade from the moon's reflection through the elegant glass window.

She called him a ghost – lost in the world with a story long forgotten in time. Little did she know that she was just as lost and dead as he was.

"We wait," Draco said, and took Hermione's hand in his own. Hermione's pulse began to race; his touch was so much different than Ron's. It was a touch that she preferred above all else. She gazed up at his face, expecting a stony expression. Instead, there was a grin – a grin reserved for her eyes and her eyes only.

She leaned in closer to him and pressed her mouth against his, lips sealed tight like she was holding in a secret – their secret.

Draco brought her in to him, pulling her arms up around his neck and placing his hands on the gentle curve of her hips. He deepened the kiss, opening his mouth to her and she to him.

Two ghosts – lost in the world with a story to tell but no one to tell it to.

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><p><em>~End<em>


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